Edge of Faith July 2017 - Page 35

road. We taught women to clear the water of as
many particles as possible such as sticks, grass,
and dirt, to place this somewhat filtered water in
clear plastic bottles, and then to lay them out in
the sun for four to five hours. The UV rays of the
sun would kill any remaining bacteria thus ren-
dering the water safe to drink. This simple meth-
od was tested over a year’s period. At the start of
the trial, the small church had had over 50 infant
deaths. At the end of the year, there had been
none. Simple, cheap, but effective. We had to boil
all our own water and filter it as well, if we had
water on the compound; often we did not. We
did try to store water in large rain tanks, but the
local children would waste it and could empty
a whole tank in one day if they left the tap run-
ning. We also had extra water in bottles; some
for drinking, others for washing and laundry. We
often joked saying we didn’t shower, we bottled!
We also taught them how to make drying racks
for dishes, and how to make hand washing sta-
tions out of discarded plastic jerry cans and
string; to use the sun-bathed clear plastic bottles
for drinking, instead of clay pots; not to use a
communal drinking cup and so on.
You have recently being reassigned to
Cape of Good Hope. They are currently
suffering from a major drought. Could you
address some of the issues they are facing?
We recently moved from Gambela, Ethiopia to
Cape Town, South Africa mostly for health rea-
sons. I have several heart problems that simply
did not go well with the extreme temperatures
in Gambela. After much prayer and consulta-
tion with various supporters: friends, family
members, church leaders, our sending agency,
SAMS (the Society of Anglican Missionaries
and Senders), as well as the folks at Growing the
Church where we now work, we decided Cape
Town was the best fit for us for the future.
Cape Town is a far cry from Gambela! It is a
city whereas Gambela was very, very rural, but
people are people regardless of where they live
and they all basically have the same needs and
problems.
But we never would have imagined that one such
problem would be water!
The Western Cape in general has experienced
a few years of lower than normal rainfall. But
due to inadequate precautionary measures, the
city of 3.7 million people (a population density